This morning Mark rode in to the office on this enormobike.
It’s a Haibike Fat Six and in addition to being one of those attention seeking fat bikes it’s also an eBike powered by a Bosch motor. In line with UK legislation it only provides power up to 16mph. After that you are on your own as the motor does not provide any power to the wheels. There are four power settings – eco, tour, sport and turbo. depending on which you choose the range is decreased or increased. In Eco mode the dashboard display gives a fully charged estimate of 42 miles of range and in Turbo mode that drops to around 10.
Anyway, more on the details of the bike later. What’s very interesting is the fact that this morning Mark decided to Strava his commute and this is video explains what happened.
https://vimeo.com/124807686
Comments (32)
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just wanted to get it in early, #cheatingscum
hahahaha.
Whilst I’m sure they’re a giggle to ride the red sock brigade are going to go three shades of mental when these start appearing regularly.
I can genuinely see these as opening up old access debates all over the place and giving the NIMBY’s a huge stick to beat us with.
More electric bike baiting from Singletrack!
More? Where’s the rest?
Hateful things.
Very funny…
That bike looks like it would be a lot of fun..!
Strava lets you add all sorts of activity, Alpine Skiing to Yoga.
No e-Bike, yet…..
But I agree with the sentiment most are feeling here. Cheat.
… so the only chance of getting a KOM on a climb is when its at least 42 miles from the nearest car park/power socket?
also, don’t these BB motors wear out the cassette/chain quite quickly?
took one around a car park & I was amazed. I don’t want one now but when I’m 70 or may be 65 I will be at the front of the queue.
sod strava and bikes with batteries, i think i love the white covered chair @1:50 😉
^^^^^^^^ +1 What hatter said!
Only short sighted people wont have worked this out yet!
Shocking…just arrived at work and that coffee pot is still empty.
As for lecky bikes…keep em. Boo!!!!
I’ve tried strava-ing my electric cargo bike back from the shops – didn’t get a single KOM – roadies must be cheating with all their aero sh1t!
All the sections I ‘earned’ KOMs on were technical off-road climbs. On all the road sections I didn’t come close to even the top half of Strava results, simply because the motor offers no help above 15mph, which is slow for a roadie. I’d say that for roadies eBikes are no threat to KOMs. But for MTBrs who like their Strava results eBikes are going to be up there in the top positions quite easily.
“e’bikes”.
Is it a Northern thing?
a Northern thing? the haterz might be
[dons flat cap]
“e-bike scum”
Surely doing off road sections on an e bike is the same kind of cheating as jumping in your car to beat a time on a road section!
How much are said e-bikes? Still to high to become mass market?
what hatter said
Ebikes for the old and infirm sound a great idea… if they start to feature on trails with riders on them that should be able to do without a motor, the trail use conflicts will effect us all.
How do you determine if they should be able to do without a motor? Should they wear a sign? Maybe with ‘INFIRM’ on the back of one of those flouro yellow vests. Or ‘OLD PERSON RIDING – GET OUT OF MY WAY!’ Seriously, do you think we should stop them and ask? Then make some kind of judgement?
Hatter may be right unfortunately – already seen one group of old boys waving their sticks on the South Downs after a full-suss ebike shot past them uphill, a decently fit cyclist would have struggled to cut them up on the incline but not the fat lad with the throttle, he wasn’t hanging around downhill either on account of being able to haul a stupid amount of travel around.
If ebikes mess up strava then they will have done some good for riding
I reckon getting some decent running KOMs on my Segway should also be pretty straightforward.
Its still possible to be polite, courteous and respectful with an e-bike, bike like a loon and you’ll get whats due.
Or feed the stereotype, get MAMIL’ed or Cammo’ed up and smash their faces into pulp making sure to do a burnout and melt their crimpolene Red Sox…. we get what we deserve in the main.
Does this mean strava is dead and people will stop recking trails for extra seconds, or does it mean some kind of Strava War is about to begin…
I presume Mark is condoning breaking terms and conditions…
You presume wrong. Very wrong. The point, which is obvious, is that this is a problem for Strava and their users who value their KOMs. This isn’t a story advocating this behaviour, in fact we’ve reported these KOMs to Strava in order they can be removed.
But then you knew this, right?
I think that looks ace! I would love to try one. I had a quick spin on a Scott full sus e bike last year and it was a hoot. I struggle to envisage a backlash from walkers about e bikes any more than people riding like diddies already causes. The only downsides for me would be weight and range but they aren’t insurmountable problems. Want one!
The best thing that could ever happen to strava. Go eMental!
Mark – would you say the extra power has the potential to increase the damage one rider would do to the trails in poor weather conditions? It’s easy enough to spin the wheels in slippery mud without an engine, my worry is that these things will have people hooning about digging great trenches in boggy trails instead of using good technique or getting off and pushing like a normally aspirated rider would (most people aren’t fit enough to spin out for long before it gets knackering)
I don’t have a problem with folks who need ’em riding them but don’t like the idea of a surge of “motocross lite” riders ripping up sensitive trails as they motor up them in poor weather…
It has an ECU to control the power cutout so someone will reprogramme it to get the top speed up
“How do you determine if they should be able to do without a motor?”
Riders should be able to determine that for themselves.